


Such Is the World We Live In

by ElectricalSun



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Human, Corruption, Detective Noir, Detectives, F/M, Family Drama, Film Noir, M/M, Minor Character Death, Missing Persons, Murder, Murder Mystery, Redemption, Revenge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-16
Updated: 2015-03-12
Packaged: 2018-02-25 14:12:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2624717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElectricalSun/pseuds/ElectricalSun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matthew Williams is shocked to discover that his half-brother, Alfred, has gone missing over the course of a weekend supposedly spent at the residence of a "colleague".  With governmental corruption running rampant in recent years, Matthew seeks the assistance of the private investigator Gilbert Beilschmidt, an enigmatic man with an impressively large ego. They must work swiftly in order to piece together an intricate mystery of love, death, and revenge while attempting to avoid falling into similar fates as those within their their circle of acquaintances.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Office of Gilbert Beilschmidt, PI

The young man takes a deep breath before climbing the stairs.  The faint light left in the early evening shines dimly off of the fire escape above his head.  The buildings are close together, almost as though they, too, are huddling together for warmth against the chill December breeze.

This part of the city strikes one as bloated, inflamed, with condemned buildings standing at every corner.  It has a certain character to it, the young man figures, but why anyone would want to work among all the degradation and ruin on a daily basis, he has no idea.

He climbs the steps and proceeds down the long hallway that opens before him.  It’s poorly lit and he find himself leaning at each office door to read the name of the tenant and their occupation.  More than half of the offices are vacant and it’s no wonder, considering the young man is nearly stricken with a piece of plaster falling from the poorly maintained ceiling.

Reaching the end of the hall, he uncrumples a piece of paper from his pocket.  “‘Gilbert Beilschmidt, PI.’  Well, this seems to be it,” he says aloud, checking the writing on the paper against the inscription on the placard of the door.

He hesitates before entering, allowing his hand to rest on the tarnished doorknob.  He can see an individual silhouetted through the lowered shades covering the glass door.  They stand from a desk and cross the room, away from the entrance where the man waits.  The woman, as the silhouette happens to be, has a voiced tinged with a thick Slavic accent and a demand for respect.  It’s an oddly warm voice that contrasts sharply with the drafty hall.

“Gil!  I need those files!”  she shouts.

The reply is muffled and inaudible from outside of the office.

The Slavic woman speaks again,“No, no, you have them!” And then more gently,   
“I’ve been managing newspaper clippings all day.  I have much to keep tabs on.”

The voices then go silent.  The young man is suddenly stricken with extreme anxiety.  He questions his decision to hire these individuals, but then remembers that he doesn’t have much room to make any other choice.

 _I need to do this.  For Alfred_ , he assures himself.

The door opens silently as light pours into the hallway before being once again shrouded in shadow by the closing of the door behind the nervous client.  The room before him is very warm, to the point of being stuffy, despite the small window opening into the street that lay a story below.  A sofa sits opposite the window, stitched from worn leather and the desperation of those who have entered this very room.

Behind the desk sits a very familiar face.  Her hair’s dyed black again but she’s still wearing the same red lipstick from when he first met her.  She doesn’t look up from the typewriter as the young man approaches, electing instead to emptily state “I will be with you in one moment, sir”.

“Tali?  Vitaliya Nochev?” the young man asks.

The woman pauses before lifting her head.  

“Matty Williams!” she declares, nearly jumping to her feet.  “What are you doing here?  I haven’t seen you since about year after I graduated high school.  Oh, I suppose I should call you ‘Matthew’ in professional setting, right?”

 _She still skips her articles, but her accent’s easier to understand these days_ , he thinks passively.

“Ah, well, don’t worry too much about it.  I’m here to see this Gilbert Beilschmidt about a... personal matter.”

“Well that’s the case with all of our clients.  He’s in his office right now,” she gestures to the closed door to the right of her desk.  “He’ll be ready to speak with you in one moment.”

“I thought you were going to college, Tali,” Matthew says, allowing the happy responses of an old friend to calm his nerves.

“I am.  I’m in my last year of pre-med.  Been rough working and taking care of my mother, though.”

“Doesn’t Natasha help with that?”

Tali frowns slightly at the name.  “She does... she does.  Though she has found it difficult to grow out of her old ways.  Anyways, she’s my mother’s niece.  It is only right for a mother to have her daughter taking care of her.  But let’s not talk about that.  How’s Alfred?  I usually go out with him and some few other friends on Fridays but I haven’t seen him.”

Matthew stiffens.  “Actually, that’s what I’m here about.  He’s been missing for over a week.”

“WHAT?!” Tali nearly shouts, hands slamming to the desk and eyes winding with anticipation.

The door at Matthew’s right opens, revealing the figure of the private investigator, himself.  He makes his way to the secretarial desk and examines a file.

“Do you have any messages for me, Tali?” he asks, his own Germanic accent quite different from his assistant’s more eastern tone.

_Ah.  So he is German like I thought.  What strange looks, though!  White hair and red eyes..._

Perhaps Gilbert caught him staring because he allows a huge grin to claim the lower half of his face.  “First impressions are important but you can be sure that the great Gilbert Beilschmidt, PI, has much more to offer than just his dashing looks!”  He lets out a voluminous,  self-congratulatory laugh.

Matthew half-heartedly laughs out of nervousness.

Tali doesn’t laugh.  Instead, she gives Matthew a sympathetic look.

 _This man is insane... though it would be a lie to say he is unattractive._   Matthew physically shakes his head to clear himself of such thoughts.

Tali clears her throat.  “ _Anyways_ , your brother called.  He and Feli want you to come over for dinner at their place this Sunday.  He also apologized for calling at your office but apparently you haven’t been picking up your home phone?”  She proposes this last sentence as a question, raising her eyebrows as she does so.

The investigator waves his hand passively.  “I’ll call him back when I get home.  I am very busy now.”  He gestures to Matthew who finds it within himself to blush wildly, though no one seems to notice.

“Step into my office!”  Gilbert declares, rather than requests, dramatically gesturing toward the open office door.  Matthew complies, not entirely certain just what he had gotten himself into.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /AN: Vitaliya "Tali" Nochev is an OC I've been working on for aph Crimea. She will be a fairly minor character in the story./


	2. Achilles on Harper

Matthew takes a seat in a small leather chair before Gilbert’s disproportionately large desk as the PI opens a small window in the back of the room, thoughtful enough to at least attempt to vent some of the stuffiness of the room.

The inner office isn’t much to look at.  It’s much smaller than the reception area and the occupiable space is filled with rows and rows of books and files.  The office is by no means messy, simply overstuffed with meticulously organized materials of the trade.  A suit jacket hangs on the coatrack by the door and the faint odor of cigarettes hangs in the air.

“So tell me, Matthew,”  Gilbert begins, leaning back in the chair on the opposing side of the desk, “what can I do for you?”  The buttons of his suit vest reflect a bit of light coming from the streetlights now trailing through the window as the night continues to dim.

“My brother Alfred has gone missing,”  Matthew simply states.

Gilbert nods.  “When was he last seen?”

“Last friday... so a week ago today.  I know he usually goes out with friends but last week he said he was going to be visiting a ‘colleague’ for the weekend.  I thought it was odd at first but I let it go.”  He pauses.  “Tali might know more about this.  She was always much closer to that circle.”

Gilbert grins.  “Ah!  So you are friends with my assistant.  She’s got looks but I think that temper of hers can be a lot for men to handle.”  He lets out another laugh.  “But she is damn good at what she does.”

Matthew, though slightly uneased, continues, “She and I went to highschool together.  She was in the same year as Alfred and they still share the same circle of friends to this day.  Every friday they go to dance halls or bars.  I feel, even though I’m his brother... half brother, that he has always kept friends closer than family.  I don’t know all of the names but perhaps she can give you a better list.”

“Tali!  I need you!”  Gilbert shouts without moving from his desk.

An audible sigh can be heard from the reception area.  

“Coming!”  she replies after a moment presumable spent curing silently.

“Yes, Gil?” she asks, standing in the doorframe.

“What are you usually up to on Friday nights?  With our client’s brother, Alfred?”

“He and I aren’t an item, if that’s what you’re implying,” she replies, mildly insulted, eyes narrowing.

Gilbert raises his hands as though in surrender, or perhaps to defend himself from his assistant’s piercing leer.  “I meant where do you go?  Who are you with?”

“Oh.  That’s more acceptable.” she sighs.  She takes a seat beside Matthew, crossing her legs while tapping one black pump in midair.  “We usually go down to Achilles on Harper Street.”

“Not the highest end establishment,” Gilbert notes.

“We’re working people.  In addition to Alfred, I usually tag along with Tony Carriedo, who is also your friend so perhaps you should start there-- aren’t you two related by some crazy way involving two marriages or something?  Sometimes his husband Lovino comes, as well.  There’s also my cousin Natasha and this British guy, Arthur Kirkland.  He’s the newest to our group but I like him well enough.  He’s close with Alfred.”

“I think that may have been the person he went to see last weekend,” Matthew says, finally taking his turn to speak.

“So we know where to begin,” Gilbert nods.  “I’ll ‘run into’ Tony tonight at Achilles, I think.”

Tali stands.  “I’m not going tonight because I need to watch over my mother.  But the others will be there.”  She turns to the door.  “I will be seeing you Monday.  Don’t get into too much trouble.”

~~~

It didn’t take much.  He is spotted the moment he steps through the door of the bar.

“Gil!  What are you doing here?!” a fairly tipsy Antonio exclaims, nearly dragging the PI to the table where the group is seated.  “We’re missing some people tonight so why don’t you join us?”

Gilbert finds himself seated along with Natasha, Antonio, and a British man (formally introduced as Arthur Kirkland) at a table near a window in the bar, each with a beer in hand.

Antonio continues, “Tali is taking care of her mother, Lovi is mad at me about something, and Alfred is... well I just haven’t seen Alfred!”

“Yeah, that’s something I wanted to talk to you about,”  Gilbert replies, before taking a sip of beer.  It is dreadful in quality, American made.  He makes a face as Antonio replies.

“Maybe the others know?”  He catches the attention of Natasha and Arthur who are holding their own conservation.  “Natasha, Arthur, any idea what happened to Alfred?”

Natasha just shakes her head.  She never was very friendly with Gilbert, perhaps out of jealousy of Tali.  Tali has always had a promising future, partially granted by her employment by Gilbert.  Natasha is a seamstress.  Good at what she does, but life had never given her the opportunity for much more.

Arthur pales upon hearing the name.  “Alfred...?  No, no, I haven’t seen him since last Friday.”

He’s lying, Gilbert immediately thinks.

Antonio shakes his head.  “Sorry we can’t help.  But hey, stay and have a drink!”

“I think I might do that,” Gilbert replies, catching Arthur’s gaze momentarily meeting his own, but immediately breaking away when the PI takes notice.

~~~

“We should do this more often, Gil!  You’ve been so busy with work, but now that Lovi and I have the house unpacked you should come over sometime!  Ah, I know, we can invite Francis, too, just like old times!  He lives next door to Lovi and I, did you know that?  He’s the one who let us know the property was up for sale,” Antonio rattles on after a couple of hours and a few more beers.

Gilbert is impatient.  Not because he doesn’t like the idea of spending time with old friends (something he actually quite looked forward to), but because the group is about to disband and he has his mind set on tailing Arthur.

“There you are, you jerk bastard!” Lovino enters the bar, grabbing Antonio by the coat sleeve.  “You had too many again?”

“To be fair, he’s just a lightweight,” Gibert smirks.

“Lovino!” a now perhaps more-than-tipsy Antonio declares, wrapping his arms around his husband.

“Good thing Gil here can keep you out of trouble!” Lovino says, repressing a smile (but a PI like Gilbert never misses such things).  “Well, never mind.  Let’s get you home and to bed.”

The couple leaves, followed soon by Natasha who offers Gilbert a nod, more than is typical of her.  Arthur continues to look uncomfortable.

“Well, I best be off,” he says, putting on his hat.

Gilbert grins.  “Of course!  Stay safe.  You never know what might happen in this city.”

Arthur leaves quickly, getting into a cab pulled over at the corner.  When the cab pulls away, Gilbert takes his leave, hailing a cab with incredible luck.

“Follow that cab, the one right ahead,” he says as he enters the vehicle and the cab driver does as he says.  Rain had begun falling over the past hour.  The roads are quite wet and slick with water and motor oil.  

“I’m afraid we might lose him in this weather,” the cabby replies.

“No, we won’t.  The great Gilbert Beilschmidt is too good at what he does to be held back by bad weather.”

The cabby now looks a bit uncomfortable (Gilbert seems to have that effect on people).  “And just what is it that you do?”

“Erm,” Gilbert looks out the window, sitting further back in his seat, “Never mind that.  I have a feeling this won’t take very long.”

The PI and the cabby drive on without another word.


	3. Several Rude Interruptions

They end up at an apartment building in a classier part of town.  Not “high class”, per say, but better than anything a PI could afford.  An honest one, anyways.

Gilbert takes a look at the mailboxes outside of the building.

“A. Kirkland.  305,” he reads out loud to himself.

Damn.  I’ll have to come back tomorrow.  Perhaps stake out the place.

Night had long ago fallen and the winter breeze kicks up snow about the occasional figure darting under a streetlight or out of a vehicle.  It is one of those figures who breaks the silence.

“Gilbert?”  A voice behind him inquires.  

The PI stiffens at the voice.  It is tinged with familiarity, but it was the recollection of deceit that sends a shiver down Gilbert’s spine.

He turns slowly to greet the woman.  

Elizabeta Héderváry.

“Liz, what are you doing here?” Gilbert shakily asks.

A man stands next to the young woman, also in his twenties, his wire framed glasses stained with snow.  Seeing his figure in the moonlight makes Gilbert feel as though all the blood had suddenly drain from his head.  He nonchalantly touches the wall of the building to regain his balance.

“I live here,” the spectacled man says, quite matter of factly.

Gilbert’s reply comes out more bitterly than expected, “Piano playing must pay well, Roderich?”

“Gilbert, don’t be rude!  Roderich is a fine musician, you know that for yourself,”  Elizabeta replies, pushing her bobbed brown hair out of her face.  When Gilbert had first known her it had been very long.

The PI scowls at the women, allowing her to know that he had not come on a social visit, and certainly had not intended on encountering the couple who stand before him.  It had been she who had taken Roderich from him.  But since then it felt as though an eternity had passed, and there were other wounds between the two that would certainly take longer to heal than the fallout of a petty love triangle.

Elizabeta could read his face quite well.  

“Gil, I know I’ve done a lot of wrong, plenty of things I could never make right, but please, if you ever need anything of me I am more than willing to help.”  She bites her lip.  “But you are a man who has always seen the world as black and white.  I think you lose some of the things in the grayscale.”

 _What the hell does that even mean?_ he furiously ponders.

_But... I could use her help._

“Liz, can we talk about something?  It’s professional, I swear.”  He glances at Roderich before continuing.  “Meet me at Rudy’s Diner downtown.  Tomorrow around noon.  Thanks, I need to get going.  Call my assistant if you can’t make it!”  He starts walking away, perhaps prematurely, not seeming to know what to do with himself in the presence of his former lover, that damned musician.  Liz, though the one who committed the greater wrong in the situation, could be handled with more ease when in private.

“But I don’t even know the number for your office!”  she shouts in reply to deaf ears.  Gilbert had since stumbled into the night.

~~~

“Well, Matt’s gotten pushy,”  Tali says as Gilbert comes into the office the following morning.  

“What?”  Gilbert asks, lost.  He has yet to even remove his coat.

“He called today and insisted on meeting with you as soon as possible to discuss the case.  I don’t think he has any more information, though.  Just anxious.”

“Well, I have a couple of things I need to get done today.  They have to do with his case.”

Tali simply points to the opening door, the tall, slender frame of Matthew Williams now entering the waiting room from the hallway.

Gilbert’s eyes narrow.  “Are... are you bleeding?”

Matthew’s reply is faint.  “I was hit with plaster falling from the hallway ceiling.”  Gilbert can barely suppress a laugh.  Matthew blushes faintly in response.

“I’ve seen you bandaged up more than a few times from the exact same thing, Gil,”  she says from behind a pile of newspapers stacked on her desk.

Gilbert stops trying to hold back his laughter as it burst forcefully forth from the PI.  “Yeah, yeah, it happens to the best of us.  Even the great Gilbert Beilschmidt, PI!”

Matthew looks to Tali who glances from over a newspaper she had been perusing.

“He does that at least once a day,”  she replies, “Refer to himself in the third person, I mean.  You get used to it.”

“Here, let’s clean you up,”  Gilbert finally says, leading Matthew to his office.

He closes a window in the back of the room he had accidentally left open the previous evening.  Even though the office smells as fresh as it had even been since Gilbert first rented the place, it is absolutely freezing.

Matthew takes a seat across from the desk as Gilbert goes to retrieve a first aid kit.

Gilbert turns from a bookshelf, kit in hand.  However, any intimate moment that may have been expected from the scenario is spoiled as Gilbert somehow manages to trip over his own shoelace and fall to the floor, slicing his cheek on the corner of his desk in the process.

His shout sounds something like “BLAAAAARH!” which isn’t very dignified at all for a noir detective, such as his awesome self.

However, Matthew quickly rushes to his aid, lifting the PI halfway up from the floor, but soon finding that he is not quite strong enough to heave him to a chair.  They sit like that for a moment as Gilbert attempts to get his bearings after he had been so rudely interrupted by gravity.  He leans against the thin blond, blushing faintly in embarrassment.

Tali opens the office door, looks at her boss on the floor, cradled by her friend from high school.  She shakes her head and closes the door.

Needless to say, it is Matthew who then patches the bleeding Gilbert, his own superficial scrape now clotted.  It is the polite thing to do, after all.

~~~

“Are you sure you don’t need stitches?” Matthew asks as they pull up to the diner in Gilbert’s black sedan.

Gilbert is still overwhelmingly embarrassed about the entire incident.  He shakes his head, subconsciously touching the pad of gauze that covers the gash in his flesh.

“It’s fine,”  he says in reply, looking to the neons sign above Rudy’s Diner.

The two men enter the establishment, seating themselves in the back of the room.  Matthew shifts uncomfortably in the cracked plastic of the booth.

After placing their order, Gilbert catches Elizabeta’s eye from across the diner.  She is seated by a window facing the street, sunlight reflecting off of her face, partially hidden behind a national newspaper.  A half finished plate of eggs sits before her.

“There she is,” Gilbert quickly says to Matthew.  “I’ll be back before our food arrives.”

“Are you sure about this, Gilbert?”  Matthew asks as the PI stands to leave.

“What?  Treating you to lunch?  Well, you know, since you helped me back--”

Matthew blushes as he cuts Gilbert off.  “No, no!  Not that.”  His voice drops to a whisper.  “Are you sure she can be trusted?”

Gilbert glances to Elizabeta, now turning to the entertainment section of the journal, more cool and collected than Gilbert could remember from the past.

“Yes, she can be.  Things haven’t always been great between me and Liz, but even if she can’t help us I know she won’t do anything stupid or dangerous.”

Not anymore, he reflects as he walks to her table, trying to mirror her placidity by folding his hands into his pockets.

“Gilbert,”  she says, creasing the newspaper and placing it on her lap.  She gestures for him to take a seat.

He does so, leaning himself into its stiff backing.  

“How are things at the bureau, Liz?”  he asks, attempting to sound nonchalant.

Elizabeta shakes her head.  “We both know you don’t give a damn about the bureau anymore, Gil,”  she retorts.  “So what is it you need?”

“Well, will you be willing to help me?”  he asks, now tapping his fingers on the wooden table in his slight unease.

“It depends on what you want me to do for you.  Nothing illegal, you know the deal. I...”  she trails off but seems to catch herself.  “I don’t do those things anymore.”

“I’m not asking you to,”  Gilbert replies, nodding at Liz’s admission.

“No, in our time as partners you never did ask anything of me.”  She blinks, her eyes shine for a moment and with another blink haze over with professionalism, borderline coldness.

“I’m working on a missing person’s case.  Client would rather not have you or the police in on who exactly it is,”  Gilbert begins.

Elizabeta sighs.  “Few rotten apples spoils the bunch, but I understand their concern.”  She glances at her hands.  They are not as smooth as they used to be.

“But I need to know if any information passes along your desk about other missing persons and... I hate to say it, but you know as well as I do that we should keep an eye out for unidentified murder suspects as well.”

Elizabeta seems somewhat relieved.  “I’ll do what I can in that regard, within reason.”

“And one more thing.”

“Oh?”  The woman says, her eyes shifting to a paper in Gilbert’s hands.  “I never realized you were such an artist, Gil.”

He smirked as he replies,  “I am a man of many talents of course!”

The detective gives him a doubtful look.

“My secretary drew this for me.  His name is Arthur Kirkland and I need to know anything I can about him.”

Elizabeta recoils her hands.  “I’m not stalking someone for you Gil!”  She exclaims in an astonished whisper.  She scrapes her chair back a bit, a harsh sound on the old tile floors.

“No! No. Just...” The PI pauses for a second.  “Anything within reason.”

The detective reluctantly takes the paper.  “I don’t know how far you are willing to go for this client, Gil, but I know you tend to keep your nose clean even though you’re such a loudmouth.   I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you, Liz,”  Gilbert says as he rises from his chair.

“I also don’t know what that smirk means, Gil, but I sure hope you have everything under control.”

“And I hope you do too, Liz,”  he says, turning his back to his former partner just as the waitress sets his turkey club at the booth in the back.

Though Gilbert doesn’t see, a single mascara stained teardrop runs from Elizabeta’s eye as she adorns her hat and walks into the glare of the afternoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters sometimes go OOC, but of course that's because they've been shaped by their backgrounds within the AU.
> 
> Feedback appreciated!


End file.
